On the other side of well-lit Lagos mega city lie certain communities literally starved of civilisation. Aside a one-off effort by a former Lagos State governor to provide them with power through solar a few years back, the community of six villages have probably never experienced electricity in the real sense. They also lack virtually all the good things that come with the present modern age, and are still steeped in primitive adjudication methods, which have so far served them well. Dorcas Egede and Mary Fabeyo who visited the community report.
IT was a less than fifteen minutes boat journey from Apapa Wharf, but it was nevertheless fraught with trepidation and dread. Half-way into the journey, the boat sputtered, jerked and came to a halt in the middle of the blackish water. Fear gripped these reporters, who weren’t so familiar with such a situation. Taking in the vast gleaming water in one split second, they felt as if the world was closing in on them. But the local Ogu (Egun) traders on board simply continued with their banters in their language, as if oblivious of the immediate development. To them, this was a non-issue, something merely akin to a danfo bus braking-down on a Lagos road. Luckily the engine came back to life after some five long minutes of mechanical battle, and the boat continued on its slow steady journey to Sagbokoji.
As the boat inched near the bank, the sprawling community literally opened up, coming alive with activities. The jetty at Sagbokoji was awash with pigs, so much so that you wondered if the new arrivals were being given a ‘piggy’ welcome. Aside the pigs, young men and women, boys and girls of school age could also be seen everywhere peddling their various wares or working on the crayfish and fishes they had harvested on the day. Those not engaged in any kind of work were seen in various little groups, chatting away.
Somehow, you wonder why these kids weren’t in school; but the answer to this was soon to dawn on these visitors.
Light years from light
After ascertaining that these reporters had come with the best of intentions, the community head otherwise called Baale of Sagbokoji, Chief Anthony Ovime, invited them into his palace, where he reeled out a brief history of the community, carefully detailing the issues they’ve been facing since the days of yore. He revealed that the community must be over a hundred years old. He also disclosed that even though the community was birthed by the Eguns, other tribes across Nigeria have come to find a home in the place and cohabit peacefully with them.
“We have the Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Ilaje, Ijaw and many other tribes here. The Egun constitute the majority because this is an Egun land.” The baale said glowing with pride.
Ovime revealed that he is from the ruling house and that he became baale at the age of 16 in 1976, following his father’s demise. But even as far back, the baale recalled that, “We have never had NEPA light.”
As a result, the people depend on electricity generating sets for power. Businesses are run solely on generators. Umaru Mustafa, a youth leader who runs a bar in neighbouring Bishop Kodji told The Nation that he has been running the bar with generators since he settled in the community about seven years ago. For this reason, he has had to sell his drinks at slightly higher rates than what obtains in other bars on the other (city) side of the creek, where electricity is a part of their lives and cost is low.
To make ends meet, Mustafa said he has had to engage in other streams of income.
He told The Nation that the administration of former Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in an attempt to solve the power problem back in 2007 built a solar power generating system in the community; but it was soon vandalised due to poor management, after functioning for only a short while.
Poor school facilities
Adejube Ojo is a clerk at the Local Authority Nursery and Primary School, the only government-owned school in the community, but also doubles as a teacher. That is because the school, which serves the roughly 200,000 population (so the Baale claims), lacks enough teachers. He told these reporters that he commutes from his home in Igando, a suburb on the Badagry axis of Lagos to and from the island every school day, to fulfil his responsibility with the Lagos State Ministry of Education, his employers.
For a school so far away from ‘civilisation’, the structures aren’t so bad, except for the lack of perimeter fence and enough teachers. Adejube revealed that he has been working in the school for 11 years but lamented the fact that “Pigs and goats freely stroll in and around the school compound” and wondered how “the pupils concentrate with so much distraction?”
“Sometimes, when we return to school on Monday morning, the pupils have to start picking broken bottles from the ground to prevent accidents. This is because members of the community would have used the school premises to hold different kinds of events, including football games, meetings and even parties.”
He revealed that the school only has two teaching staff employed directly by the government; hence the non-teaching staff have had to complement their efforts, along with a few more teachers employed by the community. Adejube, who spoke on behalf of other staff also present, told The Nation that they would appreciate an upgrade of the teaching staff strength. “It will be nice for instance to upgrade these community-employed teachers to government teachers, so they can enjoy better pay and welfare packages government teachers across the state enjoy. Even the clerical staff doing the work of a teacher should also be upgraded.”
Apart from this primary school established by the Amuwo-Odofin Local Government on May 29, 1990, there is no government secondary school in Sagbokoji. Pupils who pass out of the primary school therefore have to enrol in the few private secondary schools in the community – and that’s for those whose parents can afford it – or enrol in any of the government secondary schools on the Apapa axis across the creek.
While giving an independent assessment of the primary school, Kelvin Okereke, a member of the community told The Nation that the school is at best a glorified nursery school, noting that it does not have enough qualified teachers. He therefore declared that he cannot allow his children to attend the school, since he desires a solid educational foundation for them.
Okereke’s son attends a private primary school owned and run by the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
The situation in a neighbouring community, Bishop Kodji, is even worse. When The Nation visited, the only government primary school there was in a very sorry state. The school, which has only three classrooms, has even fewer teachers than what obtains at Sagbokoji. A female staff of the school, who spoke to our reporters on the basis of anonymity, revealed that they had to combine classrooms to maximise space, as well as manage the number of people that man the classrooms.
She said the nursery classes are all merged, same for primaries one and two, three and four and so on, leaving one to wonder how effective education happens there.
Like the school in Sagbokoji, this school also has no fence, causing it to put up with human and animal invasion, and inevitably, distractions.
Transport
If you visit the Alex area of Apapa wharf in the early hours of the day, you’re likely to spot hoards of students and grown-ups trooping out of a corner street. These people most probably just got off the boat from Sagbokoji, Bishop Kodji and their other four neighbouring communities. Having disembarked from the boat, they walk up to a foot bridge where they pay a pass fee of N20. Some of the students leave their life-jackets in care of the attendants on the foot bridge, and pick them up on their return journey.
A first time traveller on the water to any of the communities however may not want a repeat experience. This is because of the poor and epileptic state of the boats, which often causes them to break down in the middle of the vast water. Chief Dosu Victor, a member of one of the communities, who spoke to The Nation, revealed that the immediate past chairman of the Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Area together with the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) at one time or the other, provided the students with life-jackets to ensure safety and hopes they would move a step further by supporting the communities with more effective and safe boats.
Also lamenting the precarious transportation system they’ve had to put up with, Okereke said, “Since there are no government secondary schools here, most of our children cross to Apapa to access secondary school education. But do you know that there are no boats? If you go to Igbologun, they have boats that ferry students free of charge. But, here there is nothing like that. If the government donates a boat, strictly for students, it will be easier.”
As for inter-community movement on the island, Okereke said virtually everywhere in Sagbokoji is a walking distance, so there’s virtually no need for motorbikes and their attending cacophony. Even the distance between the neighbouring communities of Sagbokoji, Bishop Kodji, KwraKodji, Kamje Koji, Akopunawa and Irede are all walking distances.
Just one poor PHC
Only one primary health care centre serves the six communities on this island and it is located in Sagbokoji. Again, the centre is ill-equipped and lacks staff. The Baale of Sagbokoji, Chief Ovime aptly captured the scenario when he said: “We have a health centre which has no health practitioner. We thus have to travel to Apapa and other neighbouring communities for medical treatment, most especially when our women want to put to bed. We however have a few private medical personnel who try to help out in whatever way they can, when the need arises.”
A visit to the PHC however opened up another dimension to this discourse. First, our reporters got a far from warm welcome; even the matron was so hostile you’d think she had had some unpleasant encounter with the reporters before. And when she was asked why she was so cold, her disdainful reply: “Some people that came here earlier caused a lot of trouble. If you want to get any information, go to Festac.”
This again brings to the fore the poor hospitality level of Nigeria’s public health workers.
The Baale showed our reporters some medical supplies, which he said one of the authorities brought, promising to return, but never did. He thus wondered what they expected them to do with the supplies, when there are no medical personnel on ground to administer them.
He revealed that the health centre has a residence for doctors, and called on the government to send them at least one resident doctor, so that at every point in time, the locals would have a doctor to attend to their medical needs.
Okereke on his part called on the multi-national companies domiciled in the community to as part of their corporate social responsibility, see to the establishment of world class medical centres in the area.
He said, “Our women don’t have access to hospital facilities when it comes to childbirth. You don’t want to imagine what could happen if a woman is in labour at around 2 o’clock in the night.”
No potable water
Sagbokoji and its neighbouring communities do not have access to water for general use, much less potable. They have to go across the water with water tanks to buy water from Makoko and CMS. Okereke, who spoke passionately about their lack of access to water said, “We buy water here. It’s a private enterprise. The sellers go to CMS and Makoko with their big boats to buy the water, come here and transfer it into tanks, from where they dispense at ‘extremely expensive’ retail prices to the people. But if these companies around us give us standard borehole and treated water, I don’t think anyone would need to buy water from these sources, whose hygiene we can’t even trust.”
He said “One 25-litre jerry can of water sells at N60, while four little paint bucket sell at N15. Meanwhile, if you go outside this island, the same 25-litre jerry can go for N5. You can therefore imagine how much an average family man in these communities spends on water. Let’s assume I spend N180 on water per day; multiply it by as many as nine years that I’ve lived on this island. That is a fortune, yet water is very important.”
Open defecation
Most of the houses in these communities are built without toilets. Open defecation by humans and livestock (dogs, goats, particularly pigs) is therefore a lifestyle.
About this, Okereke said majority of the landlords in Sagbokoji didn’t build their houses with toilets. He said “If you know how they literally have to go through the eye of a needle to get water, then you’d probably understand why open defecation is for now a better option for them.”
At Bishop Kodji, where a good number of the houses are wooden, very little is left to the imagination as to why they do not have toilets. Unlike their big brother community, Sagbokoji, however, they have a general toilet and bathroom, which sits afloat the creek. When they defecate or have their baths, it goes directly into the water.
Poor waste disposal culture
As one approaches the jetty at Sagbokoji, the sight that greets you is that of huge refuse on water. It was therefore not a shock to see heaps of refuse and wastes in every nook and cranny of the community.
The Nation learnt that NIMASA (the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency) and NIWA (National Inland Waterways Authority) visit the community from time to time to tell them the importance of keeping the waterways free of refuse. But our man, Okereke said matter-of-factly that it would be impossible for the waterways to be clean, as long as the community lacks proper waste disposal systems.
“Most of our people here throw their refuse into the water, which is not advisable. But they do that because there are no alternatives. If the government can help institute proper waste disposal systems, such as the big waste disposal containers you find in Apapa and other areas, it will help a great deal.
Again Okereke is calling on the big companies in the environs to come to their rescue, noting that government alone cannot do everything.
As secure as they come
Perhaps one of the highest points of these backwater communities is the security. The community leaders at Sagbokoji and Bishop Kodji proudly told these reporters that their communities are safe. “Here, people don’t steal. You can be sure of the safety of your property, and also feel safe to move around at any time of the night without fear of being robbed of your phone or valuables. The only problem we have here is domestic disputes, mostly between husbands and wives, or lovers and perhaps neighbours.” Mustafa, the youth leader said.
Unlike Igbologun, a similar backwater community, which has two police posts, Sagbokoji has no police post. Chief Ovime revealed that for many years, he and his fellow chiefs were the ones adjudicating and settling disputes and generally ensuring that peace reigned in the communities. But after several years, he said, “It dawned on me that I was wearing myself out fast, settling endless disputes; so I decided, with the permission of the Oba in charge of all the riverine communities in this area, to divide the communities into five. That’s why we have six ‘Koji’ communities today.”
The chief, who said he took over in his father’s stead in 1967, however called on the government to establish a police post in the community, to take the pressure off him and his fellow chiefs.
Chief Dosu took these reporters on a tour of the community; he showed them a grown-up man who had been tied to a stake in the town hall, for beating and inflicting injuries on his wife. His wife, it was said, is a deaf/mute woman, whom the youth leaders considered defenceless; hence they felt infuriated that he could go to that length with her.
As further punishment, Dosu said the man would be given some strokes of the cane by the youth leaders.
On another visit, The Nation met the leaders of Sagbokoji at the Baale’s palace. They had gathered to receive these reporters, having been notified of their visit ahead. They also seized the opportunity to settle a dispute between two young men, whom Okereke said had almost killed each in a fight.
Said Okereke: “We have a large number of youths doing virtually nothing, and before you know it, crime is on the increase. What we’re settling now is a case of two people fighting with knives; they were almost going to kill each other before our ‘Igbakeji’ (second in command) intervened. I can tell you that if they have work, they won’t wake up in the morning and start fighting.”
Indeed the community has found a way of maintaining peace and order in the absence of law enforcement agents.
The Baale and his second in command nevertheless said a police post in the community would significantly reduce the rate at which people tear at each other and also reduce the many unsightly incidents that have occurred owing to fighting among community dwellers.